Drug Seizures in Germany Up 232 Percent

The Frankfurt Airport Customs Office, more often than not, is at the center of many deep web drug crimes in Germany. This is with good reason; the customs office serves as a major hub for both people and mail. And not only a hub for those in the region, the Frankfurt Airport Customs Office connects one part of the world with another part, via mail.. Not exclusively; but deep web arrests would be far less common without the customs office.

According to the Daily Sabah, a Frankfurt customs official announced a 232 percent increase in drug seizures by customs offices throughout Germany. While specific time frames were non-existent, the customs office said that they saw a 232 percent increase in “the trafficking of drugs via the post last year.”

At the Frankfurt Airport Customs Office, customs employees (and robotics) intercepted 4,675 individual drug shipments drug. The quantity of drugs per shipment increased as well. For instance, in the first quarter of 2017, Customs offices in Germany seized 700 kilograms of cocaine. Frankfurt alone has seen a 182 percent increase is the number of seizures since this time in 2016.

Albrecht Vieth, head of the Frankfurt Airport Customs Office said, “We have seen a dramatic shift in drug smuggling from travellers arriving in the nation shipments made using postal services,” Authorities in Germany have already linked this increase to deep web drug smuggling. “Frankfurt airport is a hub for the global drug smuggling business,” the Customs official said. He explained that, on average, 35 so-called “high-risk” land at the airport.

German police, along with customs officials, struggled against crystal meth from the Czech Republic for several years now. Dr Marschene Mortler, the Federal Government’s drug commissioner helped by pushing the German-Czech agreement that proposed a collaboration between both sets of customs and police units.

Uwe Schröder, President of the Directorate-General for Customs, spoke on the vital role Customs played in preventing drug trafficking. “Customs is at the forefront in the fight against international drug smuggling,” he said. No authority, save for customs, had the modern technology and wide scope of investigative power needed to catch large quantities of drugs. Schröder said that he hoped “to work in close cooperation with other authorities at home and abroad.”